Toni Erdmann

I watched this movie due to its high mark (especially by the meta-score)and in the last seconds I asked myself: so what ? Like we never saw solitude, loneliness movies ever...The acting is OK, but the subject is stretched over limits, and at a certain time I stopped to watch and went for a cigarette ! My understanding about this movie is about two societies with their characteristics (the German and the Roumanian) both mixed in a capitalistic globalization, I won't say without mercy but without care for real people. Perhaps the last or one of the last sentences of the father was that we work all time to accomplish some targets (typically German !) and don't pay attention to details along our life and then is too late....As a Romanian born young person, the atmosphere of Bucarest is very well depicted as well people surrounding the personages. But one shouldn't wonder, as these days the Romanian cinema is among the highest in its achievements, for example Mungiu's recent film "Bacalaureat" (aka Graduation)stands much above the present one. Sorry folks, but I wasn't left with a great impression.

Initially I didn't know what to make of this movie and while billed as a comedy, there really isn't much that I found laugh out load funny about it until the last third of the movie. There are lots of awkward moments, that some could find funny, but others will not like them.

Most will find this very depressing and will turn it off after the first 60 minutes or so, I nearly did, but thankfully I kept watching and really enjoyed the last third of the movie.

As a father I can speak from experience when I say fathers will do anything to make their children happy and this shows through in this movie. I felt the father's whole misguided aim was to connect with his daughter and try to cheer her up. He can see she is very unhappy with her life. He fails most of the time, but continues to try throughout the movie with sometimes interesting and funny results.

Overall I found this quite a deep, thoughtful and very German movie. Watch lots of German movies and you will know what I mean.

I would be very hesitant to watch it twice.

I liked this movie a lot. I met "these" people over the last 25 years in Bucharest and in Germany.

In this "new global world", the most of the time everybody is so deep into the details of "knowing how to be" because everybody is already like this, that if you take a step back and watch from a different angle you might wonder if anyone still remembers what it is to be a human. To remember the pleasure of feeling secure and loved by the ones that are guaranteed to be the ones that will do so. And finally if you get the right angle, you have to admit that everyone around you looks ridiculously, trying to find the detail in the detail that would make a difference, even if everybody does everything identically and there is obviously nothing else. The game about being a tough global business-woman/man, up to the most disgusting proofs to be the tougher one, is finally just flat and meaningless.

The whole story is wonderful true. The actors are doing a fantastic job making you feel the frustration and discomfort that should be seen and felt by everyone living in such a world. It is not a slow movie ... it is the shortest version of an never-ending slow life with nothing that would make your heart pound for the true meanings.

This movie brought two points to my mind. Einstein defined madness: - Trying the same thing again and again while expecting a different outcome. - Google was build on the simple idea that everybody is searching for something that everybody is already mentioning... Try to type "Apple" in the Google search field

This is a great movie - but most likely not for everyone. It's about academic upper middle-class people and their family relationships. Not everybody will find that interesting and there is no usual "romantic" plot development. It's a family portrait of a father and her daughter and as such has no (plot) conclusion. It is not the usual light comedy since it touches very serious questions and the prevailing mood is unhappiness (it is however _very_ funny at times ;-)).

That being said, this movie makes some very fine and subtle observations, presents them in a funny and entertaining form yet at the same time in a thought-provoking and philosophical way which will make you think about it for a long time. If you're from an academic (german) household you will find lots of similarities in your own family relations.

This movie is not fast-paced - in fact it often has long shots of lonely people and a lot is not said but has to be filled in by the viewer. So if you don't relate to the characters this movie will feel longish for sure. But if you find traces of your own life or that of your friends and relatives you'll be amazed by the subtlety and finesse in which this movie is directed. Although there are some bizarre events, everything which happens in this movie could happen in real life. There are no implausible scenes in this movie! This is an incredible statement given the crazy and bizarre things which happen in this movie. If you wanna know how that could be true, you might wanna watch it.

The film is (partly) about the fact that the globalisation of production does not go hand in hand with the globalisation of (real) culture, and therefore people lose a part of their "humanness", and get a strange substitute for it, the so-called "corporate culture". This problem affects all of us and most of us must have encountered similar situations or feelings as the persons in the film, that is why imho it resonates with so many people. It is especially meaningful coming from a nation, which in the past produced the greatest artists and thinkers (and not only the dark years), and which by all its peculiar characteristics and abilities would be meant to oppose the above trend. Sorry if my English is a bit strange.